November 2012

Ben Wildavsky, senior scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, says technology has to be a big part of the solution to access and affordability, but the key is to do it in a smart way.

David Kidd

More than 160,000 students from more than 190 countries signed up for Udacity's first artificial intelligence course. Udacity was co-founded by a former Stanford professor, and offers high-quality, low- cost classes online.

Michael Staton is co-founder of Inigral, a private Facebook community for colleges and universities. Photo by Jessica Mulholland.

Photo by Jessica Mulholland

Coursera was also launched by Stanford professors, and offers massively open online courses at no charge.

In 2012, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up to start the not-for-profit edX.

Though the future of health care is cloudy given the many changes that will take place over the next several years, it's clear that technology will play a vital role in making the system more sustainable.